jewels, such as pearls, diamonds, rubies, etc., but with hardly a
score of honest farthings to jingle in his breeches pocket. He

consulted with a certain merchant of Bristol concerning the
disposal of the stones--a fellow not much more cleanly in his

habits of honesty than Avary himself. This worthyundertook to
act as Avary's broker. Off he marched with the jewels, and that

was the last that the pirate saw of his Indian treasure.
Perhaps the most famous of all the piratical names to American

ears are those of Capt. Robert Kidd and Capt. Edward Teach, or
"Blackbeard."

Nothing will be ventured in regard to Kidd at this time, nor in
regard to the pros and cons as to whether he really was or was

not a pirate, after all. For many years he was the very hero of
heroes of piratical fame, there was hardly a creek or stream or

point of land along our coast, hardly a convenient bit of good
sandy beach, or hump of rock, or water- washed cave, where

fabulous treasures were not said to have been hidden by this
worthy marooner. Now we are assured that he never was a pirate,

and never did bury any treasure, excepting a certain chest, which
he was compelled to hide upon Gardiner's Island--and perhaps even

it was mythical.
So poor Kidd must be relegated to the dull ranks of simply

respectable people, or semirespectable people at best.
But with "Blackbeard" it is different, for in him we have a real,

ranting, raging, roaring pirate per se--one who really did bury
treasure, who made more than one captain walk the plank, and who

committed more private murders than he could number on the
fingers of both hands; one who fills, and will continue to fill,

the place to which he has been assigned for generations, and who
may be depended upon to hold his place in the confidence of

others for generations to come.
Captain Teach was a Bristol man born, and learned his trade on

board of sundry privateers in the East Indies during the old
French war--that of 1702--and a better apprenticeship could no

man serve. At last, somewhere about the latter part of the year
1716, a privateering captain, one Benjamin Hornigold, raised him

from the ranks and put him in command of a sloop--a lately
captured prize and Blackbeard's fortune was made. It was a very

slight step, and but the change of a few letters, to convert
"privateer" into "pirate," and it was a very short time before

Teach made that change. Not only did he make it himself, but he
persuaded his old captain to join with him.

And now fairly began that series of bold and lawless depredations
which have made his name so justly famous, and which placed him

among the very greatest of marooning freebooters.
"Our hero," says the old historian who sings of the arms and

bravery of this great man--"our hero assumed the cognomen of
Blackbeard from that large quantity of hair which, like a

frightful meteor, covered his whole face, and frightened America
more than any comet that appeared there in a long time. He was

accustomed to twist it with ribbons into small tails, after the
manner of our Ramillies wig, and turn them about his ears. In

time of action he wore a sling over his shoulders, with three
brace of pistols, hanging in holsters like bandoleers; he stuck

lighted matches under his hat, which, appearing on each side of
his face, and his eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, made

him altogether such a figure that imagination cannot form an idea
of a Fury from hell to look more frightful."

The night before the day of the action in which he was killed he
sat up drinking with some congenial company until broad daylight.

One of them asked him if his poor young wife knew where his
treasure was hidden. "No," says Blackbeard; "nobody but the

devil and I knows where it is, and the longest liver shall have
all."

As for that poor young wife of his, the life that he and his
rum-crazy shipmates led her was too terrible to be told.

For a time Blackbeard worked at his trade down on the Spanish
Main, gathering, in the few years he was there, a very neat

little fortune in the booty captured from sundryvessels; but by
and by he took it into his head to try his luck along the coast

of the Carolinas; so off he sailed to the northward, with quite a
respectable little fleet, consisting of his own vessel and two

captured sloops. From that time he was actively engaged in the
making of American history in his small way.

He first appeared off the bar of Charleston Harbor, to the no
small excitement of the worthy town of that ilk, and there he lay

for five or six days, blockading the port, and stopping incoming
and outgoing vessels at his pleasure, so that, for the time, the

commerce of the province was entirely paralyzed. All the vessels
so stopped he held as prizes, and all the crews and passengers

(among the latter of whom was more than one provincialworthy of
the day) he retained as though they were prisoners of war.

And it was a mightily awkward thing for the good folk of
Charleston to behold day after day a black flag with its white

skull and crossbones fluttering at the fore of the pirate
captain's craft, over across the level stretch of green salt

marshes; and it was mightily unpleasant, too, to know that this
or that prominent citizen was crowded down with the other

prisoners under the hatches.
One morning Captain Blackbeard finds that his stock of medicine

is low. "Tut!" says he, "we'll turn no hair gray for that." So
up he calls the bold Captain Richards, the commander of his

consort the Revenge sloop, and bids him take Mr. Marks (one of
his prisoners), and go up to Charleston and get the medicine.

There was no task that suited our Captain Richards better than
that. Up to the town he rowed, as bold as brass. "Look ye," says

he to the governor, rolling his quid of tobacco from one cheek to
another--"look ye, we're after this and that, and if we don't get

it, why, I'll tell you plain, we'll burn them bloody crafts of
yours that we've took over yonder, and cut the weasand of every

clodpoll aboard of 'em."
There was no answering an argument of such force as this, and the

worshipful governor and the good folk of Charleston knew very
well that Blackbeard and his crew were the men to do as they

promised. So Blackbeard got his medicine, and though it cost the
colony two thousand dollars, it was worth that much to the town

to be quit of him.
They say that while Captain Richards was conducting his

negotiations with the governor his boat's crew were stumping
around the streets of the town, having a glorious time of it,

while the good folk glowered wrathfully at them, but dared
venture nothing in speech or act.

Having gained a booty of between seven and eight thousand dollars
from the prizes captured, the pirates sailed away from Charleston

Harbor to the coast of North Carolina.
And now Blackbeard, following the plan adopted by so many others

of his kind, began to cudgel his brains for means to cheat his
fellows out of their share of the booty.

At Topsail Inlet he ran his own vessel aground, as though by
accident. Hands, the captain of one of the consorts, pretending

to come to his assistance, also grounded HIS sloop. Nothing now
remained but for those who were able to get away in the other

craft, which was all that was now left of the little fleet. This
did Blackbeard with some forty of his favorites. The rest of the

pirates were left on the sand spit to await the return of their
companions--which never happened.

As for Blackbeard and those who were with him, they were that
much richer, for there were so many the fewer pockets to fill.

But even yet there were too many to share the booty, in